3 min read
Cloud-Based Documentation Empowers Aircraft Maintenance Business for English Field Aviation
Overview
Preserving Yesterday, Caring for Today, Prepared for Tomorrow! English Field Aviation is an aviation maintenance provider based at Rick Husband International Airport in Amarillo, Texas.
With a staff of dedicated aviation enthusiast and career minded employees, the company says they make it their personal responsibility for customers to have the safest, most dependable, and enjoyable aircraft possible.
The Need
If a pilot finds himself in an AOG (aircraft on ground) situation somewhere in the Texas panhandle, the chances are that English Field Aviation will be called to provide emergency maintenance assistance. “Mobile AOG services now account for about 20 percent of our business,” explained Travis Lamance, co-owner, and chief operating officer of the company. “We have a repair truck that we dispatch to between 20 and 25 airports–most of which do not do enough based or transient aircraft business to justify a maintenance shop. I don’t know of any company that does quite what we do in the panhandle.”
Located at Amarillo’s Rick Husband International Airport, where it operates a 25,000 square foot MRO (maintenance, repair, and overhaul) facility, English Field Aviation ran into a problem, as its mobile AOG service grew. As Lamance explained, the company depended upon paper-based repair manuals for each of the aircraft types it services. When the emergency service truck was dispatched to an AOG at one of the far-flung airports, the appropriate manuals for the specific aircraft involved would be selected and transported to the site.
“But often when we arrived to do the job, other aircraft owners on the field would see our truck and logo, and ask if we could do some repair work for them,” noted Lamance. “In fact, while there might be three or four such opportunities during a single visit; we didn’t always have the right manuals with us at the time to carry out the repairs.”
This, said Lamance, would mandate a long drive back to Amarillo to pick up the manuals for those aircraft. “We were burning up hours of drive time in which we weren’t making any money,” he reported.
“And I have every confidence that no matter where I am, or when I need it, the information I am getting is current.”Travis Lamance
Co-Owner & COO, EFA
The Solution
English Field Aviation decided to opt for online, paperless manuals as a solution to this problem and to make the other 80 percent of its aircraft maintenance business more efficient. Veryon Publications, Lamance stated, was selected, because it was considered the best available option for the company, which serves both a corporate aviation and owner-flown aircraft clientele.
“We were already evolving from paper to digital documentation,” he explained. “The accessibility of the web-based documents on Veryon Publications was a feature we felt was extremely important, along with the fact that it is also extremely user-friendly and easy to learn. All it takes is a few minutes to look at the tutorial, and that gets you up to speed. We don’t have to spend hours training people to use it.”
English Field Aviation uses tVeryon Publications on laptop computers to access the OEM libraries for the aircraft and engine types it maintains. Specifically, that includes the Beechcraft King Air and Cessna Conquest turboprop families; Pratt & Whitney- Canada PT6 and Honeywell TPE 331 engines. The facility also services most piston engine aircraft including Mooney, Cirrus, Cessna, Piper and Beechcraft, and their Continental and Lycoming engines. Routine, line-level maintenance on the light to mid-size Cessna Citation business jet line is also available.
“If our subscription does not include an airplane we are asked to work on–either in the field or at our repair shop in Amarillo–we will call our customer representative at Veryon and ask him to add the repair manuals we will need for that job,” Lamance said.
The Results
The internet-accessible libraries on Veryon Publications, he pointed out, have eliminated the need to store volumes of paper manuals in-house, or haul them from one AOG job to another. “We no longer have any concerns about having the correct ones available, on-site, when needed, and there is no more driving back and forth to get repair manuals when we do not,” Lamance remarked. “When we go to the various airports, we can hook into the pilot service computer at the FBO terminal, and log onto our account to get the information we need. If there is an internet connection, Veryon Publications is available.”
With access to documents only a matter of going online, Lamance especially likes the fact that when he receives a call at home from a customer with an aircraft repair issue, he can access Veryon Publications on a 24/7 basis, without having to drive to his office. “And I have every confidence that no matter where I am, or when I need it, the information I am getting is current,” he said.
About Veryon Publications
Bring aircraft technical and regulatory publications together in one app with online and offline capabilities for quick and compliant action.